Maybe this helps Howard Stern, because he is already popular enough, but this does NOTHING for new people trying to break into the system with innovative and potentially culturally challenging content. For that, thankfully we have numerous internet publishing sites.
I guess you've never listened to satellite radio. It really is like having 100+ streams of internet radio in your car/living room/pirate ship. There's plenty of music on Sirius that you won't find on FM radio, and since they aren't beholden to advertisers, they choose the music they play based on the recommendations of listeners like me.
OK, I'm curious. I subscribe to Sirius, but that's because internet radio in my car was infeasible. So a couple questions:
1. What kind of player are you using? I couldn't find a free MP3 stream player for PalmOS, and I gave up on writing my own when I found out how hard it was to squeeze an MP3 library into 64k segments.
2. What kind of mobile internet service are you using? I get free 1xRTT data at night through Verizon, but it'd cost a fortune to listen to internet radio in my car during the day.
It's not so much FCC, near as I can tell, more response to customers.
It's not the FCC at all. Cable channels aren't subject to FCC indecency rules. Comedy Central has shown the South Park movie uncut, as well as the South Park episode that says "shit" 100+ times, and lately they've been showing other uncut movies and stand-up specials during their "secret stash" in the middle of the night.
The only reason cable channels censor their content is to appease sponsors and viewers.
But their origional content, and their ads (first time I ever saw "male enhancement" ads other than SPAM was on Spike) are just demeaning to any guy with a brain.
I'll give you the ads, but ease up on their original content. Remember, Spike TV is the network that gave us The Joe Schmo Show, the first reality show that has ever been any good. An original concept, plenty of comedy, bizarre situations that bring out the best in the (real) contestants, and even some boobage for us men who actually do enjoy thinking about sex.
The hard drive kicks ass, mine is modded for the xbox media center, the games look great and optical out to dolby digital was easy with the advanced pack.
Uh-huh.. because hooking up an optical cable to the PS2's built in optical port is so damn hard.;)
Think about what happens when you download music, I'd say 40% of the time. You find that there's a click or a pop or an early cutoff in the song. Not 100% recording studio quality, or maybe even the encoding rate is less than 128k.
Hey, 1998 called. They said it's time for you to move out.
Really.. clicks and pops? No one uses analog ripping anymore, and jitter correction is a problem that was solved long ago. Bitrate less than 128 kbps? Haven't seen that for years. Even 128 is getting hard to find these days; most of what I see is 192.
Isn't this how the coloured-glasses 3D filming that was briefly popular in the mid 80s worked?
Doubtful. All you need to make a red-blue 3D movie is two cameras a certain distance apart. Apply a red filter to one and a blue filter to the other, and voila. This multiple-flash technique uses a single camera, as would the parent's suggestion.
Satellite TV works, and that's a one way pipe too.
I assume it goes like this: The audio streams are encrypted with keys that are changed periodically. New keys are sent down from space ahead of time, encrypted to individual tuners (each has a unique ID), on a repeating schedule so everyone has a chance to get them. If you don't subscribe, you won't get the new keys. If you cancel your subscription, your tuner will keep working until it gets a "turn off now" signal, but if you manage to block that, it'll stop working anyway once they change the keys.
Sirius seems to have better sound quality, IMO. Even my mom (an XM subscriber) commented on how my satellite radio got better "reception" than hers.
Sirius beats XM for political talk: they have an uncut Air America stream, and their own Sirius Left (with my pals The Young Turks), as well as two conservative talk streams. XM has one conservative and one liberal stream, and their "America Left" is just Air America with some shows replaced by non-AAR shows.
They have some big names behind their shows, including Eminem and Tony Hawk. DJ Liquid Todd has a weekly show on Alt Nation and helped put together the electronic streams Boombox and Chill. I'm sure XM has some of these too.
But I am afraid that Sirius is in trouble, simply because for most people satellite radio == XM. I'm pretty sure this is entirely because Sirius has failed to advertise, especially in the ways that count (like getting auto dealers to offer their decks).
I agree they haven't been visible enough in the public eye, but they have started to advertise more lately. I saw a commercial for the XACT (handheld Sirius receiver) before The Incredibles this weekend, and I've seen and heard the John Madden commercials a few times. The Howard Stern deal also bought them a ton of publicity - now when I mention Sirius to friends, they say "That's where Howard Stern is going, right?" And they're not even Stern fans (nor am I).
Lately, I have noticed that chains like Circuit City and Best Buy have been cutting back on their Sirius stock.
This could be because the third generation of receivers is coming out, and they've been trying to get rid of their old 2G stock.
Re:Do people still use Kazaa?
on
Skype + Kazaa = ?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I guess you haven't used eMule.. it uses the ED2K network and its own decentralized Kad network. No share ratios, no server hunting - the ED2K server list comes preloaded, and it discovers new servers and switches between them automatically. You can even search all servers with a single query.
The only problem with eMule is that you spend most of your time waiting in queue, especially if you don't have any parts of the file to share. A movie can take a few days to download. It works slowly, but surely.
The bastards at the AMA came up with the term "quack" to slander chiropractors.
Uh.... "slander"? Wake up, pal. Chiropractors are great for relieving pain, but some people make wild, crazy claims about what they can do. The chiropractors who claim to be able to treat cancer by cracking your back are quacks. The ones who are honest about what their techniques can do are not quacks.
No, that doesn't make sense. If the reason girls do better in single sex classrooms is that the teachers in mixed classes pay more attention to the boys, that still doesn't explain why boys do *worse* in single sex classrooms.
The company I work for sells a PC-driven machine to produce dot matrix holograms from digital images. They're printed on holographic plates and must be developed like regular holograms. The examples there are mostly 2D, but you can also produce 3D holograms with the right artwork. (The next version of the machine will make it possible to create 3D holograms directly from video files, e.g. raytracing output.)
The sender finds a string ("token") that includes some useful information (e.g. the recipient's email address and the date the message was sent) and has an SHA1 hash value that starts with a certain number of zero bits. The number of zero bits is the "value" of the token.
Finding a 1 bit hashcash token is trivial, because 50% of all SHA1 hash values start with a zero. Finding more valuable tokens is just as easy, but it takes longer: Just append random numbers to a base string until you get one whose hash value starts with enough zero bits.
So, if I understand you correctly, the "complete hash space" is not used. Only strings that match a certain pattern are valid hashcash tokens at all, and only valid tokens that contain the right date and email address will be accepted by a mail server.
However, storing the hash value for each string you try doesn't help at all, because the next time you need to generate a token, it'll be for a different email address or on a different day. Since SHA1 is a cryptographic hash function, having a valid token for Fred today doesn't make it any easier to come up with a valid token for Jane today, or for Fred next week.
Distributed computing does make the computation faster, because you can try more random numbers in the same period of time. Still, you're limited by the number of boxes you have * the speed of each. You'll still have to hash a million strings (give or take) to find a valid 20 bit hashcash token, whether it's one computer hashing a million strings, or a million computers hashing one string each.
GPL violations make information *less* free; sharing copyrighted music and video makes information *more* free. The unifying principle is that information should be more free.
In addition, GPL violations such as this one have an element of plagiarism. Personally, I believe proper credit is the only moral right an author/artist has regarding his creations, and I doubt I'm the only one here who feels that way.
I've been wondering the same thing. Skype doesn't look all that different from the multitudes of internet voice chat programs that are out there, from IPARTY to Visual IRC. What exactly makes it buzzworthy?
The Evil Genius himself may not be able to deal with enemies personally, but henchmen can. Just don't let Red Ivan do it or he'll blow up your whole base with his frickin' rocket launcher.
If you have a Death Cubicle (band name? edgy new office-worker comic?) then you can kill captives immediately without using a minion.
Apparently each superagent has a secret weakness you can use to kill him. I haven't found a single one yet, but if you tag superagents for weakening instead of killing/capture, they're a lot less nuisance.
The World Domination screen (2D Risk view) is entirely missing from the demo, so (1) you're stuck with your initial money supply, (2) agents and superagents show up according to the script, instead of responding to your global treachery, and (3) there are no Acts of Infamy to complete, you just focus on building a base and dealing with intruders.
Many of the objects are also missing. I think the security system is only in the full version, so the minions won't be as proactive defending your base. The laboratory is missing, so you can't research any new items. The higher minion types are also missing, so you just have the generic worker and basic social, science, and military types.
The demo gives you a good feel of the real game, though. If you like the demo, you'll probably like the full game; if not, you probably won't.
IIRC, there are no objects to place in Dungeon Keeper, just rooms. You build a "mess hall" and chickens just appear as food, you build a barracks and minions go there to sleep, etc.
In Evil Genius, you need to place objects to make the rooms work, which affects how you choose the size of each room, as well as how you guard the rooms. Minions will go to a barracks if they're tired, but they'll just stand around in a trance if you don't have any bunk beds or workout equipment. Different objects have different sizes, power requirements, and they work slower or faster on more or fewer minions at once.
EG has more options for dealing with intruders than DK. The island is constantly being visited by tourists and agents, and killing them all isn't necessarily the best thing to do. Each agent that leaves with no "heat"--without discovering any of your sinister objects--will reduce your global heat, so the nation that sent him won't be as snoopy in the near future. You can use traps and social minions to confuse agents so they don't find your incriminating stuff (or they forget what they saw), or you can capture and torture them to boost your minions' loyalty.
The World Domination screen (2D Risk view) has no equivalent in DK. This is where you get money, increase your notoriety, and perform missions to get new minion types and advance the plot. Sending minions to a foreign nation lets you get money and perform Acts of Infamy there, but it increases your heat, so more agents from that nation will come to your island.
In the full game, you can set up security systems and traps to defend your base automatically, taking a lot of the micromanagement out of it.
Traps: These are entirely automatic. An enemy agent triggers the trap (by stepping on a pressure tile, interrupting a laser beam, or passing a motion sensor), the trap activates, and the enemy is killed or weakened, depending on your choice of trap. However, your own minions will accidentally activate the traps if they aren't paying close enough attention - i.e. if you haven't built enough staff rooms or placed enough loot to keep them alert.
Security systems: These require you to tag enemies before they'll work, but they're much more effective. You set up a security desk, which is linked to a network of cameras and loudspeakers. (You can have separate networks for different areas of your base.) When the desk is staffed, the security system will notice any tagged enemy who enters the range of the cameras, and use the loudspeakers to alert anyone within earshot. Any minions who hear the alert will rush to the enemy's location and deal with him.
Tagging agents for the security system isn't too much work. You just have to click around the minimap every few minutes looking for red dots. If you have doors on your base, you'll get an audio alert whenever someone breaks in, in case you forgot to tag them.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe this helps Howard Stern, because he is already popular enough, but this does NOTHING for new people trying to break into the system with innovative and potentially culturally challenging content. For that, thankfully we have numerous internet publishing sites.
I guess you've never listened to satellite radio. It really is like having 100+ streams of internet radio in your car/living room/pirate ship. There's plenty of music on Sirius that you won't find on FM radio, and since they aren't beholden to advertisers, they choose the music they play based on the recommendations of listeners like me.
OK, I'm curious. I subscribe to Sirius, but that's because internet radio in my car was infeasible. So a couple questions:
1. What kind of player are you using? I couldn't find a free MP3 stream player for PalmOS, and I gave up on writing my own when I found out how hard it was to squeeze an MP3 library into 64k segments.
2. What kind of mobile internet service are you using? I get free 1xRTT data at night through Verizon, but it'd cost a fortune to listen to internet radio in my car during the day.
It's not so much FCC, near as I can tell, more response to customers.
It's not the FCC at all. Cable channels aren't subject to FCC indecency rules. Comedy Central has shown the South Park movie uncut, as well as the South Park episode that says "shit" 100+ times, and lately they've been showing other uncut movies and stand-up specials during their "secret stash" in the middle of the night.
The only reason cable channels censor their content is to appease sponsors and viewers.
But their origional content, and their ads (first time I ever saw "male enhancement" ads other than SPAM was on Spike) are just demeaning to any guy with a brain.
I'll give you the ads, but ease up on their original content. Remember, Spike TV is the network that gave us The Joe Schmo Show, the first reality show that has ever been any good. An original concept, plenty of comedy, bizarre situations that bring out the best in the (real) contestants, and even some boobage for us men who actually do enjoy thinking about sex.
The hard drive kicks ass, mine is modded for the xbox media center, the games look great and optical out to dolby digital was easy with the advanced pack.
;)
Uh-huh.. because hooking up an optical cable to the PS2's built in optical port is so damn hard.
Think about what happens when you download music, I'd say 40% of the time. You find that there's a click or a pop or an early cutoff in the song. Not 100% recording studio quality, or maybe even the encoding rate is less than 128k.
Hey, 1998 called. They said it's time for you to move out.
Really.. clicks and pops? No one uses analog ripping anymore, and jitter correction is a problem that was solved long ago. Bitrate less than 128 kbps? Haven't seen that for years. Even 128 is getting hard to find these days; most of what I see is 192.
Isn't this how the coloured-glasses 3D filming that was briefly popular in the mid 80s worked?
Doubtful. All you need to make a red-blue 3D movie is two cameras a certain distance apart. Apply a red filter to one and a blue filter to the other, and voila. This multiple-flash technique uses a single camera, as would the parent's suggestion.
Satellite TV works, and that's a one way pipe too.
I assume it goes like this: The audio streams are encrypted with keys that are changed periodically. New keys are sent down from space ahead of time, encrypted to individual tuners (each has a unique ID), on a repeating schedule so everyone has a chance to get them. If you don't subscribe, you won't get the new keys. If you cancel your subscription, your tuner will keep working until it gets a "turn off now" signal, but if you manage to block that, it'll stop working anyway once they change the keys.
Sirius seems to have better sound quality, IMO. Even my mom (an XM subscriber) commented on how my satellite radio got better "reception" than hers.
Sirius beats XM for political talk: they have an uncut Air America stream, and their own Sirius Left (with my pals The Young Turks), as well as two conservative talk streams. XM has one conservative and one liberal stream, and their "America Left" is just Air America with some shows replaced by non-AAR shows.
They have some big names behind their shows, including Eminem and Tony Hawk. DJ Liquid Todd has a weekly show on Alt Nation and helped put together the electronic streams Boombox and Chill. I'm sure XM has some of these too.
But I am afraid that Sirius is in trouble, simply because for most people satellite radio == XM. I'm pretty sure this is entirely because Sirius has failed to advertise, especially in the ways that count (like getting auto dealers to offer their decks).
I agree they haven't been visible enough in the public eye, but they have started to advertise more lately. I saw a commercial for the XACT (handheld Sirius receiver) before The Incredibles this weekend, and I've seen and heard the John Madden commercials a few times. The Howard Stern deal also bought them a ton of publicity - now when I mention Sirius to friends, they say "That's where Howard Stern is going, right?" And they're not even Stern fans (nor am I).
Lately, I have noticed that chains like Circuit City and Best Buy have been cutting back on their Sirius stock.
This could be because the third generation of receivers is coming out, and they've been trying to get rid of their old 2G stock.
I guess you haven't used eMule.. it uses the ED2K network and its own decentralized Kad network. No share ratios, no server hunting - the ED2K server list comes preloaded, and it discovers new servers and switches between them automatically. You can even search all servers with a single query.
The only problem with eMule is that you spend most of your time waiting in queue, especially if you don't have any parts of the file to share. A movie can take a few days to download. It works slowly, but surely.
The bastards at the AMA came up with the term "quack" to slander chiropractors.
Uh.... "slander"? Wake up, pal. Chiropractors are great for relieving pain, but some people make wild, crazy claims about what they can do. The chiropractors who claim to be able to treat cancer by cracking your back are quacks. The ones who are honest about what their techniques can do are not quacks.
And the AMA is not your enemy.
You must have missed all those "haw haw Fyodor knows a girl!" jokes. Count yourself lucky.
The patent on MP3 is not forever, either.
No, that doesn't make sense. If the reason girls do better in single sex classrooms is that the teachers in mixed classes pay more attention to the boys, that still doesn't explain why boys do *worse* in single sex classrooms.
The company I work for sells a PC-driven machine to produce dot matrix holograms from digital images. They're printed on holographic plates and must be developed like regular holograms. The examples there are mostly 2D, but you can also produce 3D holograms with the right artwork. (The next version of the machine will make it possible to create 3D holograms directly from video files, e.g. raytracing output.)
I don't think you understand how Hashcash works.
The sender finds a string ("token") that includes some useful information (e.g. the recipient's email address and the date the message was sent) and has an SHA1 hash value that starts with a certain number of zero bits. The number of zero bits is the "value" of the token.
Finding a 1 bit hashcash token is trivial, because 50% of all SHA1 hash values start with a zero. Finding more valuable tokens is just as easy, but it takes longer: Just append random numbers to a base string until you get one whose hash value starts with enough zero bits.
So, if I understand you correctly, the "complete hash space" is not used. Only strings that match a certain pattern are valid hashcash tokens at all, and only valid tokens that contain the right date and email address will be accepted by a mail server.
However, storing the hash value for each string you try doesn't help at all, because the next time you need to generate a token, it'll be for a different email address or on a different day. Since SHA1 is a cryptographic hash function, having a valid token for Fred today doesn't make it any easier to come up with a valid token for Jane today, or for Fred next week.
Distributed computing does make the computation faster, because you can try more random numbers in the same period of time. Still, you're limited by the number of boxes you have * the speed of each. You'll still have to hash a million strings (give or take) to find a valid 20 bit hashcash token, whether it's one computer hashing a million strings, or a million computers hashing one string each.
GPL violations make information *less* free; sharing copyrighted music and video makes information *more* free. The unifying principle is that information should be more free.
In addition, GPL violations such as this one have an element of plagiarism. Personally, I believe proper credit is the only moral right an author/artist has regarding his creations, and I doubt I'm the only one here who feels that way.
Fruit juice is actually no healthier than soda.
I've been wondering the same thing. Skype doesn't look all that different from the multitudes of internet voice chat programs that are out there, from IPARTY to Visual IRC. What exactly makes it buzzworthy?
Orbital collectors sending energy down to Earth? Good God, man, haven't you ever played SimCity? Do the words "microwave oops" ring a bell?
The Evil Genius himself may not be able to deal with enemies personally, but henchmen can. Just don't let Red Ivan do it or he'll blow up your whole base with his frickin' rocket launcher.
If you have a Death Cubicle (band name? edgy new office-worker comic?) then you can kill captives immediately without using a minion.
Apparently each superagent has a secret weakness you can use to kill him. I haven't found a single one yet, but if you tag superagents for weakening instead of killing/capture, they're a lot less nuisance.
The World Domination screen (2D Risk view) is entirely missing from the demo, so (1) you're stuck with your initial money supply, (2) agents and superagents show up according to the script, instead of responding to your global treachery, and (3) there are no Acts of Infamy to complete, you just focus on building a base and dealing with intruders.
Many of the objects are also missing. I think the security system is only in the full version, so the minions won't be as proactive defending your base. The laboratory is missing, so you can't research any new items. The higher minion types are also missing, so you just have the generic worker and basic social, science, and military types.
The demo gives you a good feel of the real game, though. If you like the demo, you'll probably like the full game; if not, you probably won't.
IIRC, there are no objects to place in Dungeon Keeper, just rooms. You build a "mess hall" and chickens just appear as food, you build a barracks and minions go there to sleep, etc.
In Evil Genius, you need to place objects to make the rooms work, which affects how you choose the size of each room, as well as how you guard the rooms. Minions will go to a barracks if they're tired, but they'll just stand around in a trance if you don't have any bunk beds or workout equipment. Different objects have different sizes, power requirements, and they work slower or faster on more or fewer minions at once.
EG has more options for dealing with intruders than DK. The island is constantly being visited by tourists and agents, and killing them all isn't necessarily the best thing to do. Each agent that leaves with no "heat"--without discovering any of your sinister objects--will reduce your global heat, so the nation that sent him won't be as snoopy in the near future. You can use traps and social minions to confuse agents so they don't find your incriminating stuff (or they forget what they saw), or you can capture and torture them to boost your minions' loyalty.
The World Domination screen (2D Risk view) has no equivalent in DK. This is where you get money, increase your notoriety, and perform missions to get new minion types and advance the plot. Sending minions to a foreign nation lets you get money and perform Acts of Infamy there, but it increases your heat, so more agents from that nation will come to your island.
In the full game, you can set up security systems and traps to defend your base automatically, taking a lot of the micromanagement out of it.
Traps: These are entirely automatic. An enemy agent triggers the trap (by stepping on a pressure tile, interrupting a laser beam, or passing a motion sensor), the trap activates, and the enemy is killed or weakened, depending on your choice of trap. However, your own minions will accidentally activate the traps if they aren't paying close enough attention - i.e. if you haven't built enough staff rooms or placed enough loot to keep them alert.
Security systems: These require you to tag enemies before they'll work, but they're much more effective. You set up a security desk, which is linked to a network of cameras and loudspeakers. (You can have separate networks for different areas of your base.) When the desk is staffed, the security system will notice any tagged enemy who enters the range of the cameras, and use the loudspeakers to alert anyone within earshot. Any minions who hear the alert will rush to the enemy's location and deal with him.
Tagging agents for the security system isn't too much work. You just have to click around the minimap every few minutes looking for red dots. If you have doors on your base, you'll get an audio alert whenever someone breaks in, in case you forgot to tag them.